Credit Union Mergers: "The Most Unkindest Cut Of All" And...

   

                   The Ultimate Betrayal.

✔ Life teaches some hard lessons about trust.  Lessons each of us has learned the hard way. 

We find through painful experience, that ideas, institutions, and people we hold dear often fail the test. Belief betrayed is rarely recovered. There is a fine line in our hearts, once crossed cannot... 

It's a really tough slog trying to convince credit union members that a massive betrayal of trust is underway in the credit union movement.That's normal because by definition betrayal always comes as a surprise to the unsuspecting.

Have aired several posts "The Godfather Mergers" [link], using the proposed merger between SAFE and BECU as an example [link] [link] [link], to try and demonstrate why many CU mergers don't appear to be in the financial best interests of member-owners. Clearly, at least, a merger is not the only choice... and is rarely the best choice for most members. [link]

Probably not making much progress on enlightening members, regulators and our political leaders on how severe the merger/conversion threat has become The venomous head of the merger snake hasn't fanged close to home for most... yet!

But hello, perhaps now it has! Take a look at what is happening with this other California merger - Cal Coast and SDCCU. So now you can see the raw, be-slimed underbelly of these "kumbayah, merger of equals"... lawsuits, feckless management, greed and self-interest, accusations of criminality, non-compliance, and breach of trust. [link]

😎 BTW, Mr. Todd Lane, CEO of Cal Coast, who appears to have his knickers around his knees in this saga, earned his credentials as CFO at Wescorp [link]... remember them? 

No surprise, Wescorp produced so many fine leaders for the credit union movement...

 ... yes, several real gems!

Credit Unions: Conspicuous Complicity?

Lighting it up...!

WELL!  As they say, quite a few CU marketeers got "their boxers in a wad" over the Filene's marketing post yesterday! [link]   

The "incoming twittery" was just more of the same old stuff ("SOS")....  A few flashes of madness and originality would have been much more interesting.  

If you aspire to be a thoughtful and effective CU marketeer, it might be wise and necessary for you to spend some time with Thorstein Veblen and his work "The Theory of the Leisure Class".  Believe it or not; despite being an economist, Veblen's fun! ("The most impressive satirist of his day." -- Time Magazine)  

Perhaps you need to read Veblen simply because you would like to consider where your moral compass should point, as a cooperative, non-profit leader in a for-profit, take no prisoners, "buyer beware" world. Veblen, the economist who created the phrase "conspicuous consumption", will not only make you think; he may help you choose: for-profit or not-for-profit, truth or whatever, sinner or saint?

Mr. Veblen challenges you to consider the hard-edged realities of an

"WE-aSELL" !!

impersonal, industrialized economy, juiced-up by advertising and consumption... with AI waiting in the wings! 

But even back in 1899, Thorstein Veblen was not optimistic about the logical "endgame" of a race to the bottom in a marketplace, increasingly unrestrained by local accountability, with uncertain ethical values, and flexible moral scruples.  

Veblen predicted that marketing would eventually feature the following:

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

OF MODERN MARKETING? 

(Future predictions from 1899!) 

• Attention to overstatement
• Fabricated demand
• A low traffic in salesmanship
• Promises much, delivers the minimum
• Promises much, delivers nothing of value
• Creates an artificial scarcity
• Enlarges the list of life's "necessities"
• Downplays the truth, implies the false
• Encourages contemptuous consumption
• Promises a margin of something for nothing

✔ "Veblen saw greed as the overriding motive in the modern economy, and  examined the human cost paid when social institutions exploit it for the sake of personal profit." 

 

Are we there yet CU marketeers?